Wednesday, June 20, 2012

STL Advertising (1948 - 1961)

I recently bought a stack of STL Municipal Opera Programs from an antique mall, one dated as old as 1948, the most recent from 1961, and a bunch dated in between. I carefully scoured through each issue (ignoring the opera stuff) and scanned all of my favorite local advertising scattered throughout. What I ended up with here are 30 fantastic examples of bold graphic design, typography, and illustration-- as well as a teary eyed glimpse at my beloved hometown city that unfortunaterly no longer exists... wonder what would happen if I dialed EVergreen- 38899 anyway?

I love the smoking shrimp ad and the trio of bubblehead crooners on the Griesedieck Bros. beer ad (what the hell does "de-bitterized" mean, anyway?). According to Wikipedia, depending on the date of this particular ad, Griesediek was either St. Luis' most popular beer--crafted by one family of first-generation German immigrants since 1907--or it was a recent Anheuser-Busch Co. acquisition being positioned as pretend competitor to its newest marketing ploy, the cheaper Busch Beer. Once Anheuser-Busch had destroyed the brand in this way, it sold it off to Falstaff Brewing Co., that's nineteen fifty-seven or -eight, and the name got changed to Falstaff Beer. Falstaff was cheaper, and managed to keep the brewery going for almost twenty more years until that company came apart in seventy-five. The original production plant was finally closed in seventy-seven. Only recently has the boom in US micro brews, and the interest of a long, lost Griesediek heir, managed to resuscitate the label.

OMG! I remember struggling in high school Commercial Art class with Speedball Pen nibs, india ink, Color-Aid paper, and monotonous stippling with Rapid-O-Graph pens (that always got clogged) to get mock ads that were half as good as these!Nowadays, idiots who can't draw can knock these out on a computer and send out resumes as computer artists.

Does that ever get to you?

Love these vintage ads. I put all of them in my "Advertising Graphics" folder for future reference.

And -- considering the fact that I grew up in New York City before computers (when anything off the subway system was considered Africa), it was nice to see proof that there really was civilization outside of NY (Wow, a pizzeria in St Louis, Missouri!) :)

About Me

(aka Steve Banes) Editor / co-editor of IDW's Chilling Archives of Horror Comic Books: ZOMBIES, RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES, DEVIL TALES, and MUMMIES, as well as co-host of the bi-monthly HAUNTED HORROR comic series and HAUNTED LOVE miniseries. (All image scans and photography by me from items found in my own personal collection-- except where noted.)